Politician Archive
Thread: Property Tax
UrzaTRI wrote:
KJFett wrote:Your not a greifer? My saying that raising taxes is a greif on othere players isn't justmy peronal opinion. The game rules say you are a greifer. Look at what you are doing!!!! You are taking their money without their approval. You are destroying all their items...and why? So you can drop a house there because its a good spot? Who are you to judge that someone will never come back? Sorry if the truth hurts. There is always another alternative. If you can't find it then step aside and give someone else a chance to make the puzzle pieces fit. If your city is so full of houses of dead accounts then you might as well close up shot...shutthe city hall down and start over. Greifing by any other name is still greifing and is never acceptable!It has nothing to do with knowing people in RL. It has to do with working with what you have in an honerable fashion.
Refah wasn't trying to "drop a house there because its a good spot" you idiot, he was doing it because these players have been confirmed to have quit the game, and all space within the City Boundaries has been used up. These 'dead' houses owned by people who have quit the game are taking up valuable real estate, and stopping us from gaining new citizens. This in turn is making the City look like a "Ghost Town".
Why don't you get a clue before you start slinging the word "GRIEFER" around like a **edit**ing 2-year-old???
Yours.
Urza
CEO of Tri-Corp, Happy Citizen of Heaven City and friend of Refah Deon.
hey, don't use words like that on this forum. if you can't be civil, don't post.
to the original poster: if your city has limited room, you might want to inform your citizens that if they leave they should pick up their house, move them outside the city, or transfer it to someone else. did these people know that you'll hike the taxes if they're inactive, and what do you consider as "inactive"? I would strongly discourage hiking the taxes to "get rid of" houses. I don't have official word on it though... please consider taking the issue to the CSR, especially if you know the inactive players have cancelled his/her account.
edit: early morning spelling mistake...
Message Edited by Pappi on 07-30-2004 04:48 AM
UrzaTRI wrote:
Words like what? **edit**?? Cant' see how that can be offensive if you can't even see what it is... Or maybe you are objecting to the word 'idiot'.... I don't know.
Heaven City has had a lot of players leave (the game, not the City), and consequently we no longer have anywhere to place houses.
If I was considering quitting SWG, I'd pack up all my items (house included) and store them in my Bank Storage area, or give them to friends. I certainly wouldn't be inconsiderate enough as to inconvenience the rest of the entire City due to my laziness.
I understand that you people are fighting the corner of the person that 'might return someday', but running a ghost town isn't much fun, especially when you have to turn away people that are asking to become citizens because your City is full of derelict houses...
So much for getting a civilized response on an important issue. I call them to the floor on what, according to the rules is an exploit and a greif, and you call me an "idiot"?
Taking money or goods from another player in a manner that the other player is not aware of. = GREIF
Using a tool for anything other than its original intent. = EXPLOIT
I don't see how that can be explained any other way, nor justified in any other fashion. The CSRs haven't said anything to you yet because no one has logged on to find their house gonefrom your tactic. You can be sure that when a guy logs on this summer or just before JTL to discover his house gone including all the maint he had in it because you raised the taxes to force him and his house out that it will be an issue the CSRs look at. Do you think they will take the side of the politician in this? or the customer who now has nothing.....The CSR will more than likely see a politician that abused their powers. Sure taxation is in the game. The reason taxes are in the game isto maintain and fundthe city. It is not a tool to remove homes.
I'm sorry you have all those houses from inactive accounts in your city. But here is a news flash..YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE DEALING WITH THIS! We all have houses from inactive accounts in our cities. Shoot, I have them from an entire guild that went AWOL. Do I raise taxes? NO! They burn down eventually on their own. It is pretty obvious that the ones with a lot of maintenance in them plan on coming back. Have the new citizens drop outside the city limits and move in when space clears up. Space will eventually clear...unless all of them dropped large sums of creds in the house before leaving...which is a HUGE signe that screams I'LL BE BACK!
Ratgut wrote:
I wrote a simular topic and yes... kjfett said i was griefing said i was sick to take the credits from a house thats inactive,except mine wasnt houses but harvesters thatare static and mostly inactive.key word inactive...where the city is active.I got a feelingkjfett got alot of cross server activities going on and got burned from a city eating up and inactive structure of his but of course he would deny doing that.
His other post said:
Hello,I will be starting a city her in a few days, (by city I mean plopping down a city hall in the middle of a bunch of houses) the problem I have are the old houses that are still there. I have lived in this area for a while and have seen no activity in these houses so... after I am the Mayor, can I jack the taxes as high as I can to drain their maintainace so the house will be destroyed? Does it work like this? Will they dissapear freeeing up the land, ? including the PA halls that are there as wel?.
Funny..I see you posted about houses in the other thread (Harvies later, but I was responding to the house issue). What the heck are you doing going to other threads and talking smack about what I said when you can't even get your stories in order?
That's what assuming gets you Ratgut. Irun a City outside of Theed. Its one of the oldest on the server. I am the 2nd mayor in town. The first one was suspended do to a political assassination by one of the small guilds in town that had ambissions to take over the city. We got enough votes to take the majority and place myself in the "Hot Seat", even after the guild was exposed and left. Never did the last mayor support server swapping, nor have I. It has been offered and always refused. You have only to look back on my prior postings to see that. My city just went through a major shift in its city floorplan, some houses were found to be in the way. I built around them.....never raised taxes above 3% on property or sales.the city runs on that and donations. Sure I have had pressure from a few to raise it and burn out the ones that are in the way, but I didn't let ithappen and itwill never happen. Most of these houses blend in to the existing cityplan now and the ones that don't are in areas of town that haven't been revitalized yet. There is ALWAYS another option.
I don't have to resort to "Mob" tactics to get my city organized. It's a shame some of you feel you have to.
To each of you that have raised your taxes to 50% to force out a player's house and take their Maint, I give a new Badge. The Badge of "Mob Boss". Seeing that this "Strongarm Tactic" is so wide spread here in the forums, I propose a new title for the Master Level...no not "Mayor".....Try"Godfather" and the game should switch the Milita title to "Thug" when the tax % goes over say 15%........
Message Edited by KJFett on 08-01-2004 02:13 PM
Badge of incapacity.
You are incapable to understand the problematic it seems to me.
Its nice that you have the option to build around your inactive player houses. I cannot.
Its nice from you that you say I should burn own my city and raise a new one in a place which is empty. I want to see it with my own eyes that you would do this in my situation. And it doesn't matter to me what you say, I will not believe you if you would do it. If you would do it, your city means nothing to you.
Its very nice from you to call me a thug. Let me calculate you a little how much money you get with 50% property tax from a city with roundabout 70 citizens. Well, I don't want to waste your time with details but its about 150k per week. Thats not enough to pay the weekly maintenance of our city.
Anyway, its like fighting against windmills. You will not understand my point of view. I do everything the system allows me. It allows 50% property tax and I raise it for my purposes. I accept the responsibility for what I do. I have no problems with it. If I would have, I would not be a mayor.
If you stay helpless against this problem of inactive player houses and wait for your city to fall into ruin then you are not a good mayor.
Refah wrote:
And here is my new badge for a guy like you who have not the courage to get rid of inactive player houses.
Badge of incapacity. (What the heck does "incapacity" have to do with not wanting to greif my fellow players?)
You are incapable to understand the problematic it seems to me. (yeah...that's it..you figured meout...I have been running a major city since launch, dealt with many different problems including AWOL characters from an entire guild and "I" am unable to see how abusing the tax system that was designed to support our city with credits by forcing it up to its max to run players that I decided didn't deserve to live in my town out.)
Its nice that you have the option to build around your inactive player houses. I cannot. (Bull, you can't sit here and tell me that there is NO SPACE LEFT. If that is true, you have way too many people keeping factories in town. Even if it where true....eventually you would still be maxed out with active players...you going to burn out the ones that only play once a week next to make more room? No? You would have the new resisdence drop outside of town? Hmmm..maybe you could do that now.)
Its nice from you that you say I should burn own my city and raise a new one in a place which is empty. I want to see it with my own eyes that you would do this in my situation. And it doesn't matter to me what you say, I will not believe you if you would do it. If you would do it, your city means nothing to you. (I wouldn't have to move the city, and I wouldn't have to charge 50% taxes either. There is always another way to get the job done.)
Its very nice from you to call me a thug. Let me calculate you a little how much money you get with 50% property tax from a city with roundabout 70 citizens. Well, I don't want to waste your time with details but its about 150k per week. Thats not enough to pay the weekly maintenance of our city. (I never said it was done to make you money. Wanting to make money doesn't make someone a Thug. I said that jacking the tax up to burn someone out of town, admitting to take their money for your own treasury and destroying their items is what makes someone a Thug. Thugs are seldome rich..they are; however, often taking what is not theirs from people.)
Anyway, its like fighting against windmills. You will not understand my point of view. I do everything the system allows me. It allows 50% property tax and I raise it for my purposes. I accept the responsibility for what I do. I have no problems with it. If I would have, I would not be a mayor. (Yes, I will never understand your point of veiw. Taxes are a tool for making money for the city to sustain it, not forburning people out of town, taking their money that they put in their house, destroying their belongings, and spreading the wealth that you took from them to yours and your friends bank accounts. [you can't tell me that there is no possibility that it wouldn't happen, our budget tools are too poor in this game to know what people give, and how much they are taxed reliably to insure that some of the money from the victim didn't wind up in a bank account other than the treasury.]..oh and if your weren't greifing, you would be tipping that money back tothe victimas well, not leaving it in the treasury. You tip your freinds back..why not the other guys paying your taxes?).
If you stay helpless against this problem of inactive player houses and wait for your city to fall into ruin then you are not a good mayor. (Inactive player houses are the least of my worries...keeping my citizens, active AND inactive,happy is my biggest problem.)
Yes, even the inactive players are still your responisbility, burning down houses of citizensis a sign of a mayor who has reached the fork in the road that splits the mayors that have respect for all their citizens from the ones that look at the city as being "all mine" with pesky tenants that are theirs to abuse should they not play the way "the mayor" want them to.
The most selfless thing you could do now istip the money that was taken from those houses back to the inactive players, and build around them. Then you can say.."I met the challenge of the mayorship and rose up against it and found inventivemethods of getting through the problems in ways that satisfied ALL my citizens."
Refah wrote:
Okay, I will not waste more time to argue with you about this topic, because you will never understand my point of view (you have written it). And its pointless to discuss with someone who is not able to put himself in my situation.
You burn down homes of inactive players with the sole purpose of emptying their maint so that you can put someone else on the land, which results in all that they have stored there being destroyed as well! What more is there to understand? What I don't understand how that can be considered a valid option. Can you explain that?
Go back and read what I said...I have saidbefore that I haveinactive players in my city..including those from and entire guild. I have been in your situation, your situation is nothing special.
Is building around them and putting effort into making the city plan work without this really so much harder thanjacking taxes and forcing your memebers to keep large sums of credits tied up in building maint on their homes and businesses?
aldure wrote:
How is the player not aware of taxes?, you get a mail saying the city can have tax on your structures, your goods you sell when you place them.
If they have not declared residence in the city, the taxes still come, but city wide emails don't..thus they get no warning.
Dont blame the Mayor because the owner dosent log in to see the mail saying the city has changed tax status, or his structure is in need of maintance.
Again, not getting an email means they don't know that the taxes increased a week after they went absent. Why would they be worried about an email that the building is in need of repair, they dropped enough in it for XX months worth of time. Furthermore, those repair emails are not always reliable, and someonly receive them after it is too late.
If he cancelled the account, he isnt paying SOE a nickle, he has no rights to say what happens to his stuff that has a maintance on it, that is what bank accounts are for.
IF he cancelled...do you know for a fact that they did? Who are we to judge if an account is cancelled, or still being paid and not used regularly?
Next you will call SOE a griefer for removing their charector and bank after 6 months or so of non subscription.
No. SOE has made it clear that is the policy, but even then they seldom do remove them at 6 months (Seems SOE is far more considerate than some players). Also, SOE knows when an account is truely cancelled. We don't know that ourselves, so it's not for us to decide.